Twelve days after receiving the world’s first bioprosthetic heart from French company Carmat, a 75 year old Frenchman is in “very satisfactory condition” according to a statement from the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris.

In addition, the surgeons who implanted the device released a statement to the media which said, “the artificial heart is functioning normally, automatically catering to the body’s needs without any manual adjustment.”

Should the patient continue to make progress, the case – which captured international headlines prior to Christmas – may offer hope to thousands of heart failure patients nationwide who cannot receive a donor heart due to their age or lack of organ availability.

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